Thursday, January 31, 2008

well after trying and failing to get into the latest manuscript I'm checking for work. It's not proof reading more background-proofing. Trust me before you ask it will take far too long to explain. I thought I'd write that quick review of the book I promised you.

Henry VIII: King and Court by Alison Weir.

Okay well the first thing to say is this book is not a light read. It's taken me the best part of a month to get through it and as anyone who knows me can atest that is a exceptionally long time compared to the usual couple of days (or even faster) that it takes me to get through a book. You will need to stay focussed on it.

That aside if you can maintain your interest in the book you are rewarded. The amount of detail that it goes into about the court of Henry VIII is fascinating and amusing at times. There are some jobs you just wouldn't want.

The author seems to be a great believer in "setting the scene" and in some of the earlier chapters you do risk becoming overwhelmed in details, but when you get to the marriages of Henry the book really gets going. However the author has seemed to focus on the politics of each marriage more then the women themselves so if you want to read this book to find out more the personality and lifes of each of his wifes you will probably be disappointed.

Mind you, you will probably find out much more about the actual history of Henry and his wives by reading one chapter of this book then in watching the whole series of the Tudors.

The only good thing about that series is the actress who plays Anne bolyen, who is rather pretty;

But I digress. So in conclusion the book is well worth a read but only if you have the time to give it.

I might post more reviews on other books I read later if people are interested.

Just one more day to get through and it's the weekend. Even better as it's the end of the month I now have some money! Seriousily I thought this week was never going to end. My supply of patience had become rapidly depleted. Hopefully it will let up next week otherwise I might go gibberingly insane.

It seems the bad weather the weathermen have kept insisting is coming might actually be arriving. To say it was a bit windy this morning is a understatement. It was so windy it actually woke me up! Driving to work was a interesting experience as I could feel the wind hitting the side of the car the entire time. Mind you in could have been worse. If I was having problems in my little KA I hate to think what it would have been like trying to drive Grumpys car!

The back doors still broken. Or to be more precise, stuck. Basically the door got damp, expanded and now we can't open it. Grumpys sure we're going to have a new one. So as usual the thought of having to spend money has really cheered him up. Not!

I've got my six month appraisal tomorrow. It is apparently still called an Appraisal. No one must have been able to come up with a good acronym for it. Great timing though isn't it. At the end of one of the worse weeks possible!

Institiute was interesting last night. We were down to 11 (I think) opposed to last weeks huge class of 21. I think Bro H was showing some very small signs of paranoria (as would I )but he shouldn't. I think it was just one of those timing issues.

I've finally managed to finish that book on henry 8th. It was tough read! I'll post a review at the weekend probably.

Apparently Britney spears has been carted off to hospital. Good, maybe she can get the help she so obivousily needs!

Another good episode of Torchwood last night. However just one minor niggle. I've said it before and I've said it again, we're all aware captain Jack is Bi, he doesn't have to keep kissing things to prove it!

Mike has started his own blog. Go and visit him and leave comments to encourage him to keep going. We wouldn't want him to only post two comments then not post again Cough Engineseer cough cough. :-)later!

I suppose one or two of you might be wondering what the triple A stands for. Well it’s Simple (like me), it stands for apology accepted Anonymous. Yes Anonymous has made themselves known to me and apologised for the comments they left. They realised on reflection that they might have sounded a bit harsh, but they did explain what prompted the comments and I know they meant no ill will.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Seriously I really want the radio stations to stop playing that song……… It’s getting so annoying. Especially as they have made some ‘cuts’ to it of words that they consider inappropriate before a certain time. So there’s all these moments of silence in the song. It seems that most radio stations consider the words Drugs and Ass inappropriate and remove them but apparently leaving in references to “popping pills from a pez dispenser” and “joining the mile high club” is perfectly acceptable. Oh well, ours is not to reason why…. No wait it is!

Well today has continued the great tradition of my last two Wednesdays and well basically sucked! I’ve had lots of work to do today. Three times the usual number of emails and it’s probably going to keep going at that level for sometime. The first of the ‘letters’ have arrived as well, so I guess things will keep being interesting for a few more days yet.

Its institute tonight, which should be a lot better then last week as we don’t have that same teacher who almost made me flip out! I mean just on a standard day that would have annoyed me but after the day I had had last week after hearing the news about work it came at the worst possible time.

I’m just so feeling so drained right now, the temptation to get ‘leaded drinks from the vending machines is huge (for those who don’t know I use the term unleaded for ‘diet’ or drinks like Diet coke or Diet Pepsi and leaded for the standard full of sugar and caffeine versions), but if I give in, it’s not going to help all of the good work I’ve managed over the past month. So I won’t! : - )

I think I could do with a break (vacation for my American readers) from work or a hug. Either would probably be just as good right now.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

I was looking at the visitors location Map and suddenly realised just how many visitors I’m getting this days from all over the world. Which is nice as it no longer feels I am just talking to myself all of the time and also scary in equal measure. For those of you who haven’t noticed I have added two more blogs to my ‘blogs I read list’. Tri-Ragnar, which is written by a work colleague, who started the blog to document his preparations for running a Triathlon. He’s about as far away from me on the scale of fitness as it’s possible to be right now. The 2nd blog is “I’m so funny” by Alice who you may noticed has been leaving a lot of comments lately (thanks Alice ). I recommend you go and visit the blogs if you have the time.

Alice did ask on her blog if Saxon is my real name. No it isn’t in case anyone was wondering. It’s a case of all name have been changed to protect the innocent (and guilty) kind of thing. I have inspired Alice to start a new feature on her blog called “ English Ed and Et #1”, as after reading my blog she has found it very interesting the differences between the meanings and usage of some common English words and American words. So if any of you guys have any suggestions to some words that we use in the UK which they use something else entirely please let me know so we can post some definitions for Alice and other US readers. I thought of a couple more today for here. English words on the left, US meanings on the right.

Speaking of sweets. Oh I miss Chocolate! I found myself standing in front of one of the vending machines at work for a very long time fighting my better judgement. Fortunately I managed to resist temptation. I should, baring the risk of giving into temptation finally reach my first target of loosing a stone in weight by the end of this week. So that should mean the first of my bribes, erh I mean cash reward from Grumpy and tap dance.

I feel I need to answer ‘anonymous’ who has left two comments saying I forgot to mention the most ‘important bits of news’ that President Hinckley passed away on Sunday ( mind you Anonymous left one of these comments on a post that I made on Friday so I don’t see how that could have worked). It was not down to the fact that I was ‘ignoring’ the issue or couldn’t be bothered to mention it. I didn’t hear the news until mid afternoon yesterday and to be honest after the day I had, it hadn’t had time to sink in and I wasn’t feeling in the best frame of mind to address it. So I was planning to say something about it today anyway.

I joined the church when I was eight so to be honest I don’t remember that much about the first two prophets of the church. I was 14(I think) when President Hinckley became leader of the church so I suppose the best way to describe it was his was ‘my prophet’. (I hope you get what I mean). I used to really look forward to his talks and even the longest and most uncomfortable of conference sessions seemed to fly by if I knew he was speaking.

So a great man has passed on but it’s hard to be sad when he accomplished so much, touched the hearts of so many and we know that he has been reunited with his wife.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Driving into work this morning I could just keep hearing those words from the opening of 24 " This is the longest day of my life", I knew today was going to be bad but I was hoping it wasn't going to be all that bad. The early signs were not encouraging, the drive in took a hour and I felt my zenlike calm tick away with every minute I spent in the car. It wasn't help by the fact that the radio keeps playing that darn nickelback song " I wanna be a rock star" again and again and again! But more on that another time.

The morning passed in a blur of activity getting ready. I remember the time well it was13.54 according to my computer clock when we went life. It was quiet for ten minutes....... then all hell broke loose.

Now as much as I like to I can't really go into anymore details then that as it work based and hope my long term readers will understand. But what I can say is that it relates to us have to undergo some restructuring in the division which means we have to say goodbye to some colleagues. Which absolutely sucks and I'm fed up of it happening but theres not much I can do about. but at the end of the day I'm still there and I'm just going to have to keep giving it all I can to ensure that we keep being successful and minimise the risk of this happening again.

Based on the "communications" shall we say that we have been recieving today it's very likely that this week is going to be very long and very tough. So please bear with me if my posts become somewhat downbeat or stop for whatever reason.

Well lets try getting onto some more upbeat things shall we.

Mcdonalds have announced today that they will be able to offer training coursesto staff that are the equal of GCSE's and A-levels ( for my american readers kids take GCSE's when their 14-16, if they choose to stay on in school they take a-levels 16-18, and A-level results are used for getting into university). Now theres been lots of slamming in the press for this, with lots of jokes about getting a GCSE for serving fries. But if you look closer it's more in depth then that, for example courses of resturant managemen and food hygeine which are good things and I'm sure it would benefit staff to have a recognised qualification in such highly skilled area.

Their saying in the news that Nicole Ritchie appears to have lost weight after giving birth to her baby. Must refrain from making obivous joke/comment!later!

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Well as we rapidly approach the end of January it seems like the gloom may be lifting. It's currently 4.50pm in the afternoon in the UK(at the time of writing mind you,) and it's still light. In fact the sky is starting to show signs of a spectacular sunset. There was even blue sky this morning! That's right not clouds, actual blue sky. It certainly seemed to help at church this morning, even the singing seemed a bit more cheery.

There was no need to stops at Engineseer's as he was up and he was even at church before me ( no sign of black widow though). He also had also thought up a ready supply of snappy comebacks in case our Sunday school teacher made any comments about him missing last week. Of course almost inevitably she didn't make any mention of the fact at all.

I'm still waiting on my new hometeaching list from the EQ president. I'm getting a real sense of deja vu here. The lesson in EQ was okay, even if one person actually fell asleep and started snoring. As we were arrange in a 'circle' it took a real effort of will for everyone to ignore it.

I was surprised when I got home to find that Grumpy had realised that there was a load of washing in the machine and he had taken it out and put it into the tumble dryer. Hurah! maybe he is learning. All I've got to do now is to see if I can teach how to actually put a wash on and we might be getting somewhere.

I've been reading a manuscript for work for most of the afternoon. It's actually a much better read then I was expecting. It will be strange to think however it wouldn't be in print until the end of the year. Which does seem like a scarily long way away doesn't it?

anyway, I'm going to be taking it easy this evening. I'm psyching myself up for tomorrow.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Well, on the way into town this morning we got a call from Tapdance. She had advised Grumpy of where he could get some good horse manure for his roses and she had just picked up some bags. She was calling to advise him that if he did go to get some putting a decent cover in the boot ( thats trunk for my american readers) otherwise the results could get messy. As it had for her, due to a small hole in one bag. She then proceeded to go into some detail about the mess which was quite frankly more then I ever needed or wanted to know.

Well asides from that it's been a very quiet day. Not that I mind, mind you. Should let me become all focussed and zen like(yeah thats gonna last long) for Monday because I think I'm gonna need it.

Grumpy's out again. Which admitally is a very bad sign that my father has a more active social life then me. Hey It's Saturday night and I'm in, and my father is out. I think that says it all doesn't it.

Well church tomorrow. I'm debating whether or not to stop and knock on Engineseer's door on the way to check he and Black widow are up as I seem to have been designated his unofficial keeper!

Friday, January 25, 2008

It's Friday which means the weekend is here. Yaaahhhh!!!!!!!! It couldn't have come a moment too soon. Of course now it's here I really don't want it to end as I have a, well lets just say interesting Monday coming up. No doubt I will be writing all about it come Monday.

I got a really scare last night. I turned my computer on and the monitor refused to come on. There was power but the screen was blank. I had a horrible horrible flashback to when my graphics card broke and had visions of having to spend oddles of money to get the darn thing fixed again. It was at this point grumpy came in and apologised if I was having problems with the mouse. Confused I asked him what he was on about and he explained that as the mouse on his computer had started goingwrong earlier in the day tap dance had suggested he borrowed mine. Knowing what he's like I checked the back of the computer and to my delight whilst attempting to remove my mouse, Grumpy had unplugged the mouse, keyboard, speakers an screen and somehow (don't ask me how) failed to realise he had done it. After plugging them all back in the screen came back to life and started to display a picture. So that left me trapped between feeling of delight that my computer wasn't broken again and the urge to rage at grumpy for being clumsy and messing with my computer.

Watching the TV tonight two things sprang to mind. Is there every going to be a advert from a furniture company where they sell a sofa at it's actual price? and secondly, why in the DFS advert in the middle of the DFS store is there a penguin walking around?? Any answers anyone?

Torchwood is continuing to be very good this series. Two episodes in and some great lines;" Just when I thought the end of the world couldn't get anyworse"" I know everything, plus it says so on the screen right here"It should continue to be very good as long as they keep the character of Jack Harkness toned down. Yes, we know he's bi, you don't have to keep reminding us by having him kiss someone every ten minutes!

I'm hoping Primeval will start to pick up. The plot of the first two episodes was slightly undermined by the main characters action last week as he exposed a HUGE plot hole. I wouldn't go into any details in case any readers watch the series and haven't seen them yet.

It's not a good year to be a comic book character. The x-men are disbanded, Professor xavier seems to be dead and spidermans marry to Mary Jane has just been retconned out of existance so they never married!

I'm going to be hunting aroudn the shops tomorrow for any interesting toys that could be used in conversions. I'm going to need some conversion bitz as I'm going to be building me a bigz battlewagon with deathroller. And I just realised that for anyone whose not involved with 40K will have no idea what that means and will just think I've gone crazy.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

A story based on The Three Little Pigs has been rejected by a Government-backed awards event because it might offend Muslims... and builders.The digital book, retelling the classic children's tale, was criticised by judges who said "the use of pigs raises cultural issues".

They also claimed the award-winning CD-rom, entitled The Three Little Cowboy Builders, might "alienate parts of the workforce (building trade)".The "virtual" book is designed for use on computers and interactive whiteboards and aimed at primary school children

Its publishers, Shoo-Fly, insist there is nothing offensive in it.But judges for the annual BETT awards, which recognise excellence in educational technology, claimed they had "concerns about the Asian community" and insisted "the use of pigs raises cultural issues".

As a result, they "could not recommend this product to the Muslim community".

Anne Curtis, of Newcastle-based Shoo Fly, said the idea that including pigs in a story could be interpreted as racism was a "slap in the face" and described the criticism as "inflammatory".Mrs Curtis said the product was "tongue in cheek" and took a humorous look at the building trade, with an attack on cowboy builders.

The awards are run by Becta, the Government's educational technology agency, Emap Education and the British Educational Suppliers Association.

They said: "This failed to reach the required standard across a number of criteria... In particular, the product was not sufficiently convincing on curriculum and innovation grounds to be shortlisted

A goth who leads his girlfriend around with a dog lead and collar(yes thats right a dog lead and collar) was stopped from getting on a bus amid fears for passenger safety, a bus firm confirmed.

Dani Graves, 25, and his fiancee Tasha Maltby, 19, of Dewsbury, West Yorks, claim they have been discriminated against by bus firm Arriva Yorkshire.

The black-clad couple said they had been told to leave one bus and prevented from boarding another.

The bus firm said safety came first, but it was investigating the complaint.Mr Graves told BBC Look North: "We're used to strange looks, we're used to comments(get out! people give you strange looks. can't imagine why)."But we didn't expect it from someone like that. They're providing a public service. We had our bus passes, we did everything that you are supposed to do to get on a bus."

Miss Maltby said she came up with the idea to wear a dog lead, and said previous boyfriends had called her a "weirdo" when she suggested it. (is she honestly surprised?)

The couple said they "loved each other to pieces" and the use of the lead was a "sign of trust".(it's a sign of something alright)Mr Graves said: "She's very animal like, she's kind of like a pet, as well as a partner." ( oh boy don't even know where to start there)He said he "does everything" for his girlfriend, including laying out clothes for her, feeding her and cleaning their house.He said: "You wouldn't expect your cat or dog to do the washing up or cleaning round the house." ( no but it would be cool though and you could make a fortune hiring them out)Bus operator Arriva claimed other passengers could be put at risk if the bus braked sharply.Operations director for Arriva Yorkshire, Paul Adcock, said: "Arriva takes any allegation of discrimination very seriously and have interviewed the driver regarding Mr Graves' claims.

"Our primary concern is passenger safety and while the couple are very welcome to travel on our buses, we are asking that Miss Maltby remove her dog lead before boarding the bus ( I better he never suspected he would ever say that!). "It could be dangerous for the couple and other passengers if a driver had to brake sharply while Miss Maltby was wearing the lead."

The company said it was writing to Mr Graves "to apologise for any distress caused by the way this matter was handled".

Okay like Peter griffin I am exaggerating a bit and I didn’t have a incredible hulk moment yesterday but I almost did last night.

After the events of yesterday which I still can’t talk about, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind (shall we say) at institute. Mind you the class was packed last night (21 people), ironically with Bro H not being there. The lesson on eternal marriage was about choosing when to marry and when to get engaged. ( the lesson title was in that order, don’t ask me why I don’t write the books). Now as long time readers may be aware the eternal marriage course tends to have one of two effects on me. I have lots of fun or I get incredibly depressed and wonder if those girls in Coalville are actually going to be proved right. Unfortunately last nights lesson proved to be the latter rather then the former and combined with everything else that has gone on lately made me wonder if somebody is out to give me a good kicking.

During the middle of the lesson we were reading a talk by President Hinckley about what you should look for in a ‘mate’, Of course every time somebody uses the term ‘mate’ in this course it sounds more like we in the middle of a David Attenborough style documentary“ We’re here in the deep dark depths of that wilderness known as Leicester to observe a herd of YSA as they gather at one of their favoured locations”

So the teacher was asking what attributes President Hinckley had mentioned in the talk. One of the guys finally said that girls look for is a RM ( I had been braced for that one all night). One of the girls quickly countered and said it didn’t actually say that anywhere in his talk. The teacher looked at the talk and said that one of the attributes he did mention for a guy is “Honours his priesthoods responsibilities” so that did mean that guys should be a RM.

At this point I started to grab the edge of the table so hard my knuckles started to turn white and I was frantically counting to ten in my head to stop myself flipping out. I was tempted to repeat a quote once which went along the lines of “ If we are supposed to make our own interpretations and look for hidden meanings in the scriptures and talks by church leaders, the scriptures and talks would always be in riddles”. I was also angry at the implication that I haven’t honoured my priesthood responsibilities.

But after successfully keep a check on myself I went and sat in the chapel for a few minutes during the break in an effort to calm down. I was closer to giving up and leaving before the end of the class then I have ever been before. It really did feel like one kick too many and I wasn’t sure what to do. The fact the teacher was part of the high council didn’t help as that seemed his ‘interpretation’ counted for more.

I finally realised that leaving would be the worst thing to do. If I let something like that defeat me it would make (at worse) all of the other times I had been knocked down and got back up pointless. I returned to the class and saw it out, although I did disappear pretty quickly at the end of class.

I got home to find Tapdance had dropped something’s off for me including a new set of scales. So I tried them out and they work. Unfortunately they also showed that our last set of scales had gone wrong a lot earlier then we had thought and I am heavier (to begin with) then I thought. I have been losing weight, it’s just I’ve got further to go then I thought, which was depressing. I immediately found the liveliest music I could and jumped on the bike in an effort to focus my frustrations on something as I didn’t want the scales to be the final straw of the day and make me burst into a flood of tears.

I know Kitty and Bosslady would both give me a good kicking if they were here for me slipping back into bad habits (mentality wise) as they used to get really annoyed when I did that but I’ll admit I’m struggling with some things right now, but as the saying goes it always the darkest hour before the dawn and I’m sure things will get better.

Hey, I’m should try and be positive, after all they reckon there’s someone out there for everyone, so lets hope I run into mine soon. Who knows, maybe there is Females YSA geekette into GW out there somewhere? Maybe??

(and while I’m wishing I’d like a million pounds and a new car, right now both options as likely as meeting a YSA geekette who would be interested in me)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

I don't know what it is about Wednesdays but there seemed fated to being horrible at the moment.

Unfortuantely I can't go into details as it's work related so there's nothing else I can really say in this post. As what I really want to talk about I can't yet and I don't really feel like talking about anything else.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Well I set a new record this morning one which I seriously hope I never break. Yes it took me 1 hour and 25 minutes to get to work this morning!. That’s right 1 hour 25 minutes!! I was ten minutes late for work and not in the best of moods by the time I arrived. It seems that a truck had broken down near a road about on one of the other main routes into Nottingham . The resulting jams had backed their way up through the whole of Nottingham ’s road network eventually causing everything to slow right down. I read a article once about people worrying what would happen if terrorists attacked our transport infrastructure such as roads and the resulting confusion they would create. My opinion? Nobody would notice, any effects would probably be obscured by the general confusion we’re more then able to make on our own!

I didn’t get into any trouble for being late mind you as just as I pulled into the car park, my bosses boss arrived as well having also been delayed. So that makes it very hard for your boss to have a go at you for being late when their boss is also late! I didn’t have my appraisal today after all that. It’s been put back a week as my line manager was off ill today. Mind you I still haven’t found out if its proper name is ‘appraisal’ or if it is now called by some sort of funky acronym.

It’s institute tomorrow. We have a replacement teacher as Bro H is away. I’m sure this must be classed as a sign of the times as Bro H has been away for two lessons, been flummoxed and lost his train of thought all in one course! later!

Monday, January 21, 2008

I’m not that big a fain of Mondays. The main reason is that as my department is shut over the weekends I have all of the work that came over the weekend to do plus the work that arrives on Monday in one day. Throw in the usual Monday blues about having a whole week of work to get through before it’s the weekend to again it does get a little hard sometimes to motivate myself. It didn’t help this morning that I sat down and forgot my password to log into the computer. I had a total, total brain freeze. Couldn’t remember it at all. Maybe it’s old age catching up with me. I was on the verge of calling IT when it finally came to me. Let’s hope the rest of this week will be a little easier! Either that or my memory gets a little better.

Grumpy wasn’t in a good mood last night. For one reason mainly and that was that the replacement DVD we got him for his DVD which contained a totally different program, had exactly the same problem as the DVD it was replacing. Again rather then open all hours it contained the office Christmas specials! Suffice to say that really didn’t impress him.

My mobile ( that’s cell phone for my American readers : - ) is behaving a little oddly at the moment. It has given me a low battery warning 7 times in the past two days. It’s been on all the time yet the battery seems intent on refusing to run out! Normally it would be most impressive but at the moment it’s just annoying as I want it to run out so I can recharge the thing.

Weirdest call of the day at work has to be where the person who was calling me got distracted so didn’t start speaking when I picked up the phone, so all I could hear was the music in the background which was ride of the valkyries! Not what you usually expect to hear when you pick up the phone.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Well I had the opposite problem of last Sunday this morning. I woke up a hour before my alarm was due to go off and despite my best efforts I could not get back to sleep. Suffice to say I got to church in plenty of time. As Grumpy didn't go out yesterday ( as per usual) I got to drive his car to church. Which is a lot newer then mine and I'm sure would have been very impressive to any single girls there. If there were any *sigh*

Anyway after sacrement we go into our YSA Sunday school class. The students were back as the new term has started so the class was a bit fuller then it has been over Christmas. A few people queried where Engineseer was (while looking at me of course). Yes it seems to paraphrase the old saying I'm not his brother but I am apparently his keeper. A few people suggested I should go and bang on his door on the way into church from now on to make sure he's up. Cordelia suggested that I should only do this however if the lights aren't on in their house. Of course the one small problem with this suggestion is that as it daylight at that time on a Sunday morning the lights should never be on. At this point the teacher comes in.

" Any sign of our friend?" she asks, I guessed she was referring to Engineseer" No, I guess he overslept" I replied. She tuttered slightly at this" That boy needs a mother or someone around to look after him"" Well he doesn't get in until 3.30 in the morning. You can udnerstand how he could oversleep having only had four hours or so of sleep"" Well if he had a baby, that's all the sleep he would be getting anyway"" But they don't have a baby" I replied at this point slightly confused. " he just works late"" Well I hope your not asking me to feel sympathy for him"" No, just some understanding"At which point I experienced one of those long hidiousily drawn out moments where I realised I had in fact just said that out loud and I started having visions of being one of the first people to be thrown out of a Sunday school class. The teacher however just paused then said" He's young, he should be able to manage on that little sleep"and got on with the lesson, leaving me to reflect on the fact that one of these days I am going to severely drop myself in it.

Aisdes from that not much else happened. Everybody seems to be stuck in the deeps of the January blues. Even the singing in sacrement seems rather lack lustre at the moment. Hopefully when we get to the end of January things will improve. There being a break in the rain would probably help too.

Work wise should be interesting thisweek. Our six months sales figures are announced and I have my first 'proper' six month evaluation, or assessment or whatever anconym they've decided to call it now.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Well it's the weekend, yah! And what does that mean? I get a lie in and don't have to set my alarm. Although Grumpy usually comes and wakes me up instead. Fortunately it was a slightly easier wake up this morning as he simply hammered on the door. Last week in burst in singing “Morning has broken". (Don’t ask me why he did that, I'm sure it made sense to him at the time)

First port of call in town was Zaavi, which used to be known as Virgin Megastore before it was taken over. (Grumpy had great fun with cracking lots of jokes about that). As grumpy had forgotten to take that DVD back. Well when we went in, I was all fired up for an argument with the staff as we didn't have the receipt. To my surprise they swapped it with no problems what so ever. While we waiting I suddenly noticed a DVD set of “From the earth to the moon" in their sale section, which is one of my favourite series ever (I have it on video). To my great delight I noticed the price, it was only £10. Well I wasn't going to let that one go and bought it post haste.

I went searching for a new set of scales as well and came up empty. Tired boots tried Superdrug, nothing! This was interesting considering each had huge displays for Healthy food, slim fast etc. Boots did have a set of scales in store but there is no way I am going to weigh myself on a set of talking scales in public! I would think it takes someone extremely confident in themselves or have an urge to show off that, they are at their perfect weight to get on one of those things.

Shopping went okay and cutting back on what we're eating is having an effect as it is getting a bit cheaper each week. The downside is Iceland doesn't have the greatest selection of own brands sometimes and they do taste a bit sameish (wait is that even a word?) I can't tell the difference between the normal chicken and spicy.

I'm trying the walkers Lite this week instead of squares. After comparing them I noticed that although they had more sugar then squares they do have half the fat. Their a bit higher in calories but I'll just make sure I spend some extra time on the bike. I did try Scullys suggestion of Almonds. Unfortunately I didn't like them, downsides of being a picky eater so the hunt for a good healthy snack food I like goes on. Any suggestions anyone?

I've just been watching Primeval, I'll be commenting on that in another post. So now onto the bike for today’s riding. I'm up to 30 minutes a time now. Which is good. The trouble is I'm finding it a bit hard to find good music to listen to when riding. Has anyone got any suggestions for good workout music?

Well church tomorrow. I've already set my alarm so there shouldn't be a repeat of last week’s problems.

Friday, January 18, 2008

There are few sentences from Grumpy that make me worry more then ones which start with " Have you seen....." as this inevitably means he has misplaced some item that he needs at that moment in time and is not going to relax until we find the thing. So when he asked if I had seen his mobile I realised I wasn't going to get any peace unless I helped him search for the thing.

Fortuantely he knew he had left his phone switched on. So he rang in and we both went as quiet as possible to try and hear the thing ring. Well when I say 'both', it was more me. See little known fact about muggins here is that I have very good hearing ( now watch anybody who knows me get very paranoid if their trying to have a quiet conversation with someone and I'm near by, he, he, he). I was able to hear the phone ringing almsot immediately but it was very faint. My first thought... It's in his bedroom. So I go in there and then had to keep shushing grumpy who kept asking every few seconds if I could still hear it. So under the bed, nope! In the drawers? Nope either. I then tried his wardrobe which was when Grumpy stuck his head ound the door and started laughing at me standing there with my head stuck in the wardrobe.

G: I should take a picture of that.With what? you don't have a cameraG: The camera on my phone of course.That would be the camera on the phone you've lost and I'm currently searching for ?G: ummm yes.

Nothing in the wardrobe either. Grumpy went back to the house phone and tried calling his mobile again. Again the ringing started but it was faint. I was stumped and could't think where it was in the house. It was then I remembered that he has the volume on his phone cranked up to maximum. So if it wasn't in the house, could it be?... I opened his window and immediately I was proved right. I could hear the phone clear as a bell and could see a etheral blue glow coming out from under his car. So either there was a spirt underneath his car and we needed to call the ghostbusters or we had found the thing. One quick check later and we had his phone. Quite how it got that far under the car neither Grumpy or I have no idea.

Well it's been raining again. In fact it's been raining almost constantly over the past two days, so there's, well water everywhere! It's severely depressing. Things weren't helped yesterday when there were two major accidents on the roads, one of which closed my way home! I was going to try going cross country but there had been several accidents around Loughborough as well so basically where ever I was going to go I was going to get stuck. So I eventually decided to take the easy option and stayed at work reading for a while waiting for the traffic to die down . It was annoying but not as annoying as being stuck in a traffic jam would have been.

anyway, my goal for the weekend is to do something constructive. I have no idea what constructive thing I'm going to do, so lets hope inspiration strikes hey?

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

Thursday, January 17, 2008

It’s been announced today that the Darkest ever substance known to science has been created in the US. It’s created from carbon nanotubes and researchers say it is the closest thing yet to the ideal black material. Or to put it another way “ They’ve made the blackest material known to science”. So there you go today’s top science news story is that they’ve made black…blacker.

Though it might be marginally more sensible then the top story from yesterday where US Scientists have apparently created a genetically engineered Super carrot that provides extra calcium.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of exciting discoveries going on at the moment which leads me to one of two theories. Either there was there a bunch of scientists hanging about going, “ Hmm we’ve got nothing to do. Wait, I know! Lets genetically engineer a carrot and make Black, blacker.” (Well I suppose it makes more sense then the pigs that were genetically engineered to glow in the dark.) Or governments are just worried if they don’t give them something better to do the scientists will be recruited by Engineseer or Nemesis to help them take over the world. In the case of Engineseer “ Invent me a flying death fortress, no wait I’d rather have sharks with laser beams “ In the case of Nemesis “ Build me a machine that will transport any English actor I want straight to my library, or build me a teleporter so I can visit every city I want”. In fact, any suggestions from anyone as to if they had a group of mad scientists at their beck and call what they would have them build?

The most pointless news item of the past couple of days has to go to the Daily mail website with a story showing a picture of Katie Holmes daughter and a picture of Katie Holmes at the same age and commenting how much alike they looked. I’m surprised they didn’t print it on the front page“ Child looks like parent shock. Full story inside”

Apparently in the race for President in the USA Mitt Romney has won some state or something. I have to admit I’m having a bit of a problem following their system as they keep using lots of technical terms which don’t seem to make a awful lot of sense to anyone outside of the USA. However I did see on someone’s blog the other day that if Romney did become president that would cause a heck of a lot of problems for him church wise. For example going to church on Sundays, would the secret service have to clear any investigators the missionaries want to bring ahead of time? How about Home teaching? I suppose that would be a good excuse to give your Quorum president. “I wasn’t able to home teach the Romneys as the secret service wouldn’t clear me”.

Institute was okay last night, it would have been great but unfortunately outside events conspired against me and lets leave it at that.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

On my way into work there is a section of road that has a ‘warning’ sign. Which is basically a big display screen attached to a speed camera. If you’re at or under the speed limit it displays your speed with a bright green ‘thank you’ displayed just above it. If your order the speed limit it displays your speed with a big red “check your speed” warning. Now it is a good idea. However it works all of the time even when there’s a huge traffic queue as there is most mornings. Trust me your patience isn’t helped in a traffic jam if the sign is displaying a big thank you for your speed of 2 miles per hour!

Well I managed to summon up my courage to get on the scales last night to see what affect my resolutions were having and to see if I had reached my first goal ( both Tap- dance and Grumpy have promised to give me money for every stone of weight I loose, nothing like bribery to keep you focused hey? ) I know I’m at least half way there for my first stone as I weight myself about a week and a half ago and I wanted to see if I was there yet. Grumpy had sounded a note of warning that with all the exercise I have been doing there was a chance I might have put on a pound or two from increasing muscle ( try using that as a excuse next time you put on weight. It’s just muscle, honest : - )

So I finally got on the scales waited a few moments for it to settle down ( we have digital scales by the way) I looked down and almost had a heart attack. The display was showing I had put all the weight back on plus more, I was probably very close to bursting into a rather unmanly show of tears when the display flicked again and showed I was actually down 3 stone, it then flicked again and increased by two stone, then flicked again and showed a decrease of six stone, followed by another flick etc, etc. I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the box sometimes but it didn’t take me that long to realise that there was a fairly good chance that the darn thing was broken. After getting Grumpy to try them, he too experienced the same result. So as their now broken their going in the bin and we’ll be shopping for new scales come Saturday.

It’s institute tonight. Hopefully there will be a few more people there tonight then last week. Especially as the uni students should be back. Ah to have the life of a student again.... Things were so much simpler then. It doesn’t seem like it was five years ago that I left. Times flies doesn’t it?

For those of you who haven’t noticed on the right hand side of the blog just under the list of who’s who and above the Labels I’ve added a rather cool map which shows the locations of the visitors here. If you are a new visitor, hello! Please feel free to leave comments (please).

Anyway if this map is correct (and I’m sure it is), I’m getting lots more visitors then I used to, from place like the USA, Portugal, South Africa and Australia! Hopefully this proves that my resolution to increase traffic is working and I have a feeling that a lot of it is down to the LDs blogs webring. So it looks like I made a good call there me thinks. When I first signed up for it, I was reminded of a line from Star trek;“ Just think if this works, you’ll be able to annoy and bore hundreds of people you’ve never even met”

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

1 hour 20 minutes. That my friends is how long I spent in the car this morning on the way into work. I really don't know what's going on with the traffic into Nottingham at the moment but if it gets much worse I'm going to have to start gettign up even earlier to get into work each day. I wouldn't mind ( that much) if I didn't know the trip can be done in only 25 minutes on a straight road!

Well work was a little different today. We had a course on copy writing. It was interesting if a little long! But hey it got me away from the usual customer service stuff for a day. The downside to that is that I will have twice as much work to do tomorrow but c'est la vie I guess.

Torchwood starts tomorrow, and it's on at the same time as instititure :-( I guess I'll have to catch the repeats.

Monday, January 14, 2008

So picture the scene, It’s Sunday Night and both myself and Grumpy are sitting the front room each reading a book. There’s nothing on TV which wasn’t a repeat, a soap or a remake of some drama or another. When without warning the lights surge and brighten twice then cut out plunging the room into darkness. Yes folks in case you hadn’t guessed it we suffered a power cut last night. I’m not sure how far it spread across Shepshed but seeing as he was so close I guess Engineseer was probably affected as well.

So there we are sitting in darkness and unsurprisingly with all the power off and even the street lights outside out it was for all intents and purposes pitch black. So after a couple of moments, the conversation between myself and Grumpy went something like this; ( grumpy is represented by G)

G: “Powers out”“Yes I had noticed”G: “umm now what?”“Do you know where the torch is?”G: “Yes”“Well where is it?”G: “Upstairs somewhere”“Oh that’s helpful”G: “ I know”“Do you have your phone there?”G: “Why do you want to make a call?”“No, but you can use the light from the screen to see”G: “Oh right”

At which point he opens his mobile and the rooms gets lit in an ethereal bluish glow. Which allows me to find my mobile and use it’s light to find my way upstairs in search of the torch. See well prepared in case of emergency aren’t we? Using our mobiles to see in the dark. After a fruitless search I looked out the window to see every other house is dark in fact as far as I could see. I went downstairs and mentioned this to grumpy

“ It’s dark everywhere else as far as I can see”G: “ Well if it’s Dark of course it’s going to be dark as far as you can see, if it wasn’t it would be light wouldn’t it?”

You’ve got to admit that for once he might have had a point. We were saved from anymore stupid comments by the lights coming back on and of course as is the way of things in these situations we then found the torch. Which did come in useful, ten minutes later when the power went out again. Fortunately this time the cut only lasted for a couple of minutes. Still it was a bit of excitement in an otherwise boring day.

Traffic was absolute chaos this morning. It took me one hour, five minutes to get into work this morning. A journey that only takes 25 minutes on a clear road! Although the side benefit of sitting in traffic that long is that it does encourage you to become very Zen like. Well it’s either that or go stark raving mad : - ) Or maybe I have already gone mad and nobodies noticed.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Well I learned a really important lesson today.Alarm clocks work better if you remember to turn them on. Remember that Sage piece of advice children.....

Yes in case you haven't guessed Genius here forgot to turn his alarm clock on last night. Which meant I massively overslept ( and I mean massively) which meant by the time I woke up it wasn't really 'worth' going as I wouldn't have gotten there in time for the start of priesthood. So in words of that genius Hmer J simpson 'D'oh'.

Asides from that one piece of cleverness it has once again been a really boring day.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Well I'm currently looking out of the office window whilst I'm writing this post and guess what. Yes sir it's raining. Again. Other places in the UK get snow but we get rain again. It does seem at times that we're stuck in some odd weather 'dead zone' where we will get totally random weather to the rest of the UK.

Well nothing much to report today to be honest. It was just a same old, same old Saturday. Get up, shopping, ome home etc. Hmm maybe thats a way to keep up with my resolution to keep the blog uptodate. Just post after post of "nothing new to report". What do you think? No? well me neither :-)

There was a Friday forum last night. I was going to go but the heavy rain and flooded roads made me decide not to risk it. I suppose I could have probably gone but I really don't like driving in those road coniditions, when the waters so deep on the roads you can feel the resistance back through your steering wheel. Well to be honest it's partly that and partly the fact that I felt shattered by the time I got home. I still haven't been able to track down where my get up and go has gone too.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Well I am already starting to see a bit of a difference from my first three resolutions. Well that and I feel hungry a lot of the time which I’m taking to be a good sign. I was talking to Engineseer about this at institute on Wednesday. His suggestion was that I get some bags of grapes to put on my desk seeing as we have absolutely zero in the way of healthy snack type things in the vending machines here at work. It’s a good idea but to paraphrase Kryten from Red Dwarf “ It’s a good plan with two drawbacks, first I don’t like grapes and second I don’t like grapes, admittedly it’s the same drawback but it’s so significant I thought I better mention it twice.”( not that Engineseer knew that of course when he made his suggestion, in case you think I’m being harsh, I’m just joking: - )

Grumpy actually found a set of weights he bought a while ago when he was having one of his fitness drives a while ago. So I tried using them for the first last night. Which was interesting, as I’m sure there were or two more ‘cracks’ from a couple of joints then there used to be. Maybe I’m just getting ‘old’. I’m still going okay on the exercise bike. The main problem when your on the bike is keeping going as your doing lots of pedalling and going nowhere!

It’s been raining again today. Lots and lots of the stuff. Hmmm, maybe the weathers decided to get a headstart on the summer season : - ). Fortunately I’ve had one of those days where it was possible to stay in the office and not have to go outside for anything.

Talking of the office my Blagging powers continue to grow. I managed to get hold of a spare copy of a new game for my DS which is very cool. I also managed to blag a Ork Trukk as well. Although I’m going to take a guess for that item, only Engineseer is going to have a clue what that is! And why it’s cool.

I saw horrid story in the news today. One of those “ if it happened to you, you would be messed up forever” . A pair of twins who were adopted by separate families as babies got married with knowing they were brother or sister. Only one thing to say to that. Yuck, Yuck, Yuck, Yuck. That’s the sort of thing you expect to appear in a soap, not real life. The case was used as a sample in a case about people who are adopted should be able to find out about their relatives more easily otherwise and I quote the guy who was running the case “Tragedies like this could occur”. Boy does this guy have a gift for understatement or what?

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Grumpy has decided he wants a new toy. After seeing one of his friends SatNav in action he’s decided it’s great and now wants one. Now I’m not too sure what the end result will be but bear in mind this is a man who sometimes has problems turning the subtitles on, on the TV, so who knows what’s going to happen.

He was also experiencing technical problems when I arrive home last night from institute. He was trying to play one of the ‘open all hours’ DVD’s I had got him for Christmas. Only it wasn’t Open all hours on the disk itself. Despite the disk being labelled as open all hours it wasn’t open all hours on the DVD. It was the office Christmas specials instead. I think this can be summed up in one word“ Huh?”Well that’s one DVD going back to the shop. Me thinks.

Institute was fun last night. Even if we were quite thin on the ground ( only 11 people). The eternal marriage course was especially funny when whilst Bro H was talking about ‘components of the three different kinds of love (terrestrial, celestial etc) he mentioned that there would still be a physical element to each one, one of the girls suddenly said at the “oh Good”. During a pause so it sounded really loud (and wrong) Everybody burst into a fit of the giggles and Bro H actually seemed flummoxed for a moment and not sure what to say. He paused for another moment then quickly got on with the lesson. He, he, he. later!

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

It snowed last night. Yah!! Well not so yah, it was only a light dusting which only settled on my car windscreen. Then due to a, oh so helpful combinations of rain and very cold temperatures it turned into ice. Very thick ice. In face so thick the de icer this morning had no effect on it whatsoever. I ended up having to scrabble around in a desperate attempt to find a scraper and clear the windscreen by hand. Which was not an easy job in the slightest.

Institute starts again tonight. I’m trying to be good (and as everybody knows I’m very trying) and ramp up my enthusiasm but like a lot of people this month I seem to be stuck in one of those moods where my get up and go has got up and gone. Having to get up when its still pitch dark outside probably isn’t helping me regain my get up and go.

I was looking at a photo that was taken at a fireside in late 2006 of all of the Loughborough YSA. It’s amazing how much we’ve ‘shrank’ since then. I was thinking about my ‘peers’ from youth and it was quite shocking to realise that there’s only about three of us now who are still active and single. I’ve starting to get a horrible feeling of ‘last man standing’. I honestly wasn’t expecting when I was younger to still be single at 26! Mind you back in youth being 20 seemed a long way off, 26 was… well you just didn’t think about it/

Darn it! There I go again back into self pity. This is definitely being the hardest of my resolutions this year. I’m really really going to have to work on this one I fink!

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

I’ve got no idea what subprime means mind you, but apparently American Linguists say it is the 2007 word of the year. So I figured I'd use it as using de big words makes me appear smarter yah?

Well YSA FHE was a bit of a misfire last night. Only Engineseer, two of the Chinese students and me turned up. So it didn’t go on that long. We actually ended up watching a random episode form the TV show “The long way round”. Overall it was a FHE that couldn’t have got more random to be honest.

Well it’s been more or less a week since I started my resolutions. So how am I going? I hear one or two of you ask, maybe, if you haven’t got anything better to do : - ) (use the resolution label to bring up the resolutions)

1,2,3: These three are all going well. I’m over the caffeine headaches (only got myself to blame there) and I’ve cut way back on the fizzy drink. In fact I’ve been drinking a lot more water during the day at work. So yah me! I’ve been slowly building my time up on the exercise bike each day. I’m now up to doing 11kms ( 25 minutes or so each day).

4: Doing well on this one too. I’ve managed at least one post each day so far. However we’re only a week into the new year so it might be a bit early to celebrate on this one.

5: Not sure how this one is going. I’ve signed up to a web ring and a couple of blog listings, so I’ll see what affect that has. If you haven’t noticed I’ve also added a map to show where the visitors to my blog are coming from. Since adding the map I’ve had visitors from the USA, UK and Europe. So I like to think that means the number of visitors coming here is going up. I’ve just got to figure out a way to encourage more comments.

Mind you it might just be a lot of these people are using RSS feeds so don’t comment (cough, Engineseer, cough, cough) or mobile phones so can’t comment (cough Mechanicus cough cough)

6. Slow and steady on this one. I’ve already resisted some impulse buys in the sales. I guess I’ll see how I go on this one.

7. Our survey says X. Yeap not doing to well on this one. As I spent sometime at the weekend feeling sorry for myself. So must work on this one. Repeat after me, Happy thoughts, hap hap happy thoughts.

8) zero progress on this one. Must try harder.

9) I’ve been learning how to use the movie maker on vista and finished my first go at a movie.So I like to think this would count.

10) I’ve almost finished my first book on the tudors. I’ll post a review when I’m done.

So 6 successes so far, four must try harders. Not too bad I think. Mind you it’s only been a week. I suppose I shouldn’t crow too much until at least a month has gone by should I?

Monday, January 07, 2008

I guess it might be the time of year, going to work when it’s Dark and going home when it’s dark but everybody at Church yesterday seemed stuck in slow motion. Seriously, the kind of singing in sacrament seemed more suited to funeral dirges then anything else. The bishop seemed as equally affected as everybody else, welcoming us at the start of the meeting to the Branch and when announcing a calling, called a sister as ‘Brother.’ Well at least that wasn’t as bad as what happened a few weeks ago when they got the ‘technical terms’ mixed up and instead of calling Non-splitters brothers to the activities committee called him as the janitor instead!

The Sunday school lesson wasn’t much better. Especially when I had a brain freeze of the highest order when the teacher asked a question! Our Sunday school teacher was talking about the Book of Mormon ( as that’s our course this year) and saying how she used to think when she was younger that it was just full of war like “ Games Workshop”, just like GW . I kept myself from making any comments…. (Aren’t you all impressed?)

The super slow motion continued into priesthood. The EQ started off with the Pres asking how many people didn’t have the new manual. Nearly all of the class put they hands up ( in fact the whole of the class barring visitors). The Pres looked confused and said we must have missed last week. Of course missing the actual explanation of they didn’t give them out at all last week. He then proceeded to give us our updated home teaching assignments. And guess what, they have actually given me a new home teaching partner. The Pres was sure of that…..he just couldn’t remember who it was and didn’t have a list for me as it had gone to the High priests group.

He then proceeded to start the lesson by asking who didn’t receive the ensign. Both Engineseer and I raised our hands. He asked us if we knew who the ward magazine rep was. Both of us looked blank (and didn’t know the answer either, Boom, Boom ). He then suggested that we could ring the distribution centre on Solihull and could get the number from the inside of the stake diaries. “ Stake diaries?” was Engineseers immediate query which was said in a tone of “ nobody told me we did those things”. The pres paused then quickly got on with the lesson. I leant across to Engineseer and said quietly “Isn’t it great to be in an organised church” at which point both of us then had to stifle a fit of the giggles.

Anyway it’s YSA FHE this evening. Hopefully we’ll have a few more people turn up then last time. There’s even an outside chance that social might turn up. Here’s hoping.

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Well as it was that time of year when you have to take down the christmas decorations and get down to the same old routine of everyday work, it was tied for us to head up into the loft to put away our christmas decorations. Of course when I saw us I mean me. Tap dance used to go up into the loft when she was here as the loft space is more fitted to someone of her build rather then mine. So in the middle of much cursing and trying to figure out where the decorations go I came across a box of forgotten photos. As many of them are from my younger years I thought you might fidn it amusing to see what a young saxon looked like. Enjoy!

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Well my 'ranking' on Facebook has just been updated. It nows appears that I am;

5th in "Who is more loyal"10th in "Who is a better catch"11th in "Who is more powerful"15th in "Who is more trustworthy"15th in "Who is better at science"16th in "Who is kinder"17th in "Who is more generous"18th in "Who is more entertaining"

19th in "Who can drink more"21st in "Who is more cuddly"23rd in "Who is more artistic"24th in "Who has better hair"24th in "Who is a better listener"25th in "Who has a better body"25th in "Who would I rather date"26th in "Who would I rather kiss"26th in "Who is sexier"27th in "Who is more attractive"28th in "Who is a better singer"29th in "Who is braver"30th in "Who is more outgoing"30th in "Who would I rather be trapped on a desert island with"31st in "Who smells nicer"31st in "Who is more well-mannered"32nd in "Who is more likely to win in a fight"32nd in "Who is nicer"33rd in "Who am I more jealous of"34th in "Who more likely to succeed"34th in "Who is more confident"35th in "Who is smarter"36th in "Who has a better sense of humor"36th in "Who has better taste in music"39th in "Who is more likely to do a favor for me"39th in "Who studies harder"40th in "Who would I rather hang out with for a day"

now these stupid rankings wouldn't both me that much if I didn't seem to keep going down all of the time! I do find it amusing that I have been voted 28th in best singer. I may have some talents somewhere but singing certainly isn't one of them.

Okay, I am going to try and ignore these stupid things otherwise the face that I've come 35th in who is smarter, 36th in who has a better sense of humour and last in who people would rather hang out with for a day would seriousily start to depress me and knock my confidence. And hey I can't really afford for my confidence can't get much lower then it is already.

Well I had a Bacon sandwich for Breakfast, Fish and chips for Lunch, went shopping this morning, spent twice as long as usual on the bike to make up for breakfast and lunch and Grumpys gone out. So I guess that must mean it's a Saturday! Okay so Sherlock Holmes I am not, but I hope this means at the very least I can start getting my sense of time sorted out!

It did seem warmer then usual this morning but of course a brisk wind put pay to that. I can't wait for it to start getting warmer. I'm wearing my fleece to and from work at the moment as it takes my car so long to warm up!

I'm having fun playing with movie maker on windows vista at the moment. Yet another sure sign that I am too geeky for my own good sometimes and I really need to get out more.

We should be having our next YSA family home evening on Monday. Hopefully we'll have a few more people turn up then last time. Things seem to have gone a bit quiet on the social front for the YSA at the moment. Not sure why.

Ummm, I've kind of hit a mental brick wall here and rambling (even more then usual), so I'm not sure what else to say. I guess I'll leave it there and go and find something geeky to do :-)

Friday, January 04, 2008

Now apparently this is a term Brigham Young came up with. I don’t know the proper context and whether this was meant to be a serious comment or if it was meant tongue in check. Either way it’s starting to really tick me off. Especially as our Sunday school teacher gleefully decided to brand me one in last weeks lesson.

And why am I a menace to society I hear you ask? Well apparently all Men who are over 25 and not married are Menaces to society. So I guess this means I have yet a new line to add to my signature which now goes something like this;

Saxon,An Optimistic pessimistic menace to society, strange outcast anti-Santa niche toy uber geek, who is not classified as a man by some YSA Females and Left handed right hand minion member of Engineseers team(BA)

(See didn’t forget the BA.)

Now I am more then aware that I am not married thank you very much. People branding me a ‘menace to society’ and finding it tremendously funny, is and you may find this a surprise not a big help! It doesn’t help with my confidence either.

Okay Rant over…. Sorry just had to get that out of my system :-)

This reminds me of one thing I was going to say. Smooth has just announced his engagement in another announcement that was rather anti climatic. I don’t think anybody was expecting him to come back from Utah and not be engaged.

But don’t get me started on Grumpys constant jokes about sending me to the USA to find a wife either!

I’m sure that unless you’re a Billionaire with lots of free time on your hands and could do all the crazy things you’ve ever wanted to do, like me you’re a creature of habit. We all have our little routines that we do week in week out on the same days etc. It’s a way of keeping track of the passing of time I guess.

Well Christmas and new Years have totally thrown my routines into the air and for the past couple of days I have really, really had to think as to what day it is. So this either proves my point or proves I’m getting old. Take your pick.

So usually the main things I do each ‘standard’ week go like this;

Monday – Work, Grumpy goes to Bridge class in the evening.Tuesday- WorkWednesday- Work, Institute in evening, get dinner on way there.Thursday- WorkFriday- workSaturday- Cooked breakfast, going shopping at Iceland, get Fish and chips on way home, Grumpy goes out and I get house to myselfSunday- Church, Sunday roast for dinner.

Boring I know but I’m sure all of you have equally boring routines at times.

So why am I getting confused and my sense of time has gone out of the window? Well this is roughly how the past two weeks have gone. Starting Christmas eve.

Monday : Work till 1pm, come home, I cook dinner, sit around reading.Tuesday : Christmas day. Spend half day with grumpy, half with tap dance. Sort of weekend feeling.Wednesday : Get up early, travel with Tap dance and Matriarch up to Mechanicus clan. Don’t get back till late.Thursday: Spend most of the day playing with shiny new toys.Friday: Work. I’m the only one there in our whole division. I’m in until 4pm when Iceman said I could finish early. Go across to Tap dances to see the Driver clan who had come to visit.Saturday: No cooked breakfast, earlier then usual to shopping and I don’t get the house to myself as Grumpy doesn’t go out.Sunday: ChurchMonday: No work, as have day off. Try to spend most of the day doing something constructive as Grumpy goes out. Wander around until evening and YSA new Years eve party.Tuesday: Again try to find something constructive to do with my day.Wednesday: No institute, go back to work and only quarter of the office back. Have lots of work to do on a Wednesday rather then Monday, so it feels like Monday rather then Wednesday.Thursday: Building still have empty, still lots of work.Friday: Even more work but Line manager comes in for first time since before Christmas for just the one day. Proceeds to confuse me even more but saying that she keeps thinking it Monday. So It’s now the weekend again and I’ve only had a three day

Thursday, January 03, 2008

It was one of those kind of days today. Where things didn't all go right, but didn't go all wrong either. It just all meandered aong in the middle vering from standard to strange back to business as usual. I know I haven't explained that very well but it was that kind of day. I'm sure you all know what I mean and had those sorts of days too.

Well for those of you who don't know ( or for those of you just joining this broadcast :-) I work in customer service and of course as it's work I can't go into lots of details of what I have to deal with every day. Don't won't to get my wrists slapped do I? Anyway I got a odd questions today about something we do....... and it stumped me.... In fact it stumped everybody. Mainly because we didn't have a answer to this question. It was a perfectly fine question it was just we didn't have a answer as to why we do that. It's just always done like that. Which did get me wondering, how many things in life do we do, without knowing a reason why we do it. It's just always like that. How about you guys? Any thoughts?

We were watching Judge Judy while we had dinner this evening. Where they had some people from the 'Deep south of America". Me and Grumpy couldn't stop laughing. Seriousily this people were walking, talking stereotypes. It was like Cletus from the Simpsons had come to life and ended up in a courtroom in front of judge Judy. Hmm that sounds like a idea for a 'sitcom'. Only joking. Or am I????

The new series of torchwood is supposed to start soon. Hurrayyy! No so Huray it's going to be on BBC 2 on Wednesday nights. Noooo! I'll just have to hope they repeat it on BBC 3 on another night, otherwise I'm going to have to just wait for the DVD's. C'est la Vie I suppose. At least Primeval will be on Saturday nights.

I'm halfway through my first book on the Tudors. I'll post a review when I'm done just to prove that I am keeping up with my resolutions. I'm still only at the point where he's still on wife number 1, yet he's managed to accomplish a fair bit. Which would surprise a lot of people If they had been watching that stupid series the Tudors, which seems to claim he spend most of his time moaning about how he wanted a divorce from his first wife. Historical drama? yeah right....

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Ah it's that magical time of every year. The new year stretches out in front of us full of possiblities and we all make vows to change things in our life........ and fail to keep most of them by the end of January.

Yes it's time for our New years resolutions ( okay, okay one day late I know). For a change I thought I would actually put mine down in writing so I've at least got a record of them and can't claim I've forgot them.... not that I've ever done that before.

1) Exercise more. Two days down of the year and two session on the bike. I'm starting slowly and building up each day. I'll let you know how this one goes.

2) loose weight. Well I've needed to do this for a long time and lets be honest, my build at the moment, probably not that attractive to the ladies.. So I'll keep you posted on this one too.

3) Cut back on sugar. This one is tied into 1 and 2 so I guess you could say it's one uber resolution. Of course in ctting back on the sugar I'm also cutting back on the caffine. Consider this fair warning that I may be cranky as hell for the next few days as I work through the caffine headaches, but only got myself to blame.

4) Keep the blog more up to date.

5) Try and get more people to read my blog and leave comments. It really does feel like I'm rambling to myself sometimes. Although of course that might be because I'm the only one who can understand me.

6) Get Finances under control and start saving. ( this is going to be a tough one)

7) Try to minimize the amount of time I spend wallowing in self pity.

8) Make a new friend.

9)Develop a new skill

10) Broaden my history knowledge by studying about the tudors. ( that TV show is so far wrong it's beyond belief!)

Okay so 10 resolutions. One year to do them all. I've created a new category so you can all keep track of how I'm doing. If your interested of course.

Place your bets now Ladies and Gents.. How many do you think I'm going to do?